“Now, Nicoletta, if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you to tell me a few things about Manuela’s ex-boyfriend, Michele Cantalupi.”
“What do you want to know about him?”
I wondered for a second if I should circle around a little bit and approach the subject slowly. But I told myself there was no reason to beat around the bush.
“Everything you can tell me about him and drugs. Before you say anything more, let me remind you that this conversation is completely confidential, and that I won’t repeat anything you’re about to tell me to anyone-least of all, to the police. I’m just trying to figure out whether and how Michele Cantalupi might have had anything to do, directly or indirectly, with Manuela’s disappearance.”
“I have no idea whether Michele had anything to do with Manuela’s disappearance.”
“Tell me about the cocaine.”
Nicoletta hesitated, then she looked over at Caterina, who nodded her head as if giving permission. Nicoletta sighed and answered.
“Well, let me begin by saying that I only know what happened while Manuela and Michele were dating.”
“Are you talking about what happened with cocaine?”
“That’s right.”
“Go ahead.”
“He always had cocaine.”
“Did he have a lot?”
“I never saw how much he had, but he always had it.”
Something about the way she answered that question told me that she wasn’t telling the truth. I felt sure that Nicoletta had seen the cocaine, and she’d seen that there was a lot of it.
“Did he bring it here, to your apartment?”
She hesitated again, then nodded.
“Was Manuela using?”
“I think so.”
“You only think so?”
“She used it sometimes.”
“Here?”
“Once or twice.”
“Together with Michele?”
“That’s right.”
Based on the way she answered me and the growing tension I could sense, I decided to change the subject, for a few minutes anyway.
“After she broke up with Michele, Manuela was dating someone else here in Rome, wasn’t she?”
She relaxed visibly.
“She went out with a guy for a few weeks, but she wasn’t serious about him.”
“Did you meet this guy?”
“I only met him once. He came over for dinner one evening.”
“How long did they date?”
“They stopped seeing each other before the summer. Manuela didn’t really like him. She just went out with him a few times because she was bored. It was a way of passing the time.”
“Were there any repercussions to that relationship?”
“What do you mean?”
“Was it an easy breakup, or was there a lot of conflict, the way there was with Michele?”
“The two of them were never even together. They went out a few times, that’s all. It wasn’t a relationship, just a few dates. I think that after a few weeks Manuela told him that she didn’t want to see him again. It just ended. No conflict at all.”
“When you and Caterina spoke, you both theorized that Michele might have had something to do with Manuela’s disappearance. Is that right?”
Nicoletta looked over at Caterina, who once again nodded, giving her permission to answer.
“Yes, but that was just something we said. Michele is a violent guy, and their relationship ended on an ugly note…”
“Is he a drug dealer?”
“I don’t know, I swear.”
I had a sudden idea.
“Did Manuela ever have cocaine of her own, independent of Cantalupi? Did she ever bring coke here, even when he wasn’t in Rome?”
Caterina shifted in her chair, changing position, and out of the corner of my eye I could see that she seemed less at ease. Nicoletta slouched and the expression on her face was unmistakable: She knew she should never have agreed to talk with me. It had been a mistake, and she was already regretting it.
“Let me ask you again: Did Manuela have a way of getting cocaine, independent of Cantalupi? This information could be very important.”
Still no answer.
“She brought some here, and you both used it, on more than one occasion. Isn’t that right?”
After another long pause, she finally spoke.
“Once or twice,” she said in a voice I could barely hear.
“Did that happen after she broke up with Cantalupi?”
“Yes.”
“So Manuela knew how to get cocaine without having to rely on Cantalupi. Did she get it in Rome or Bari?”
“I don’t know how or where she got it, I swear.”
She was starting to make me mad. If the things she was telling me-and everything that she was still keeping from me-had been reported to the Carabinieri months ago, maybe the investigation would have gone differently. I didn’t like this one bit.
“I swear I have no idea where she got the coke,” she said again.
“And you didn’t say a word to the Carabinieri about all this. Didn’t it occur to you that this information could have been helpful to their investigation? It could have made a difference.”
“I didn’t know who she was getting her coke from. Even if I’d said something to the Carabinieri, it wouldn’t have changed anything.”
It took all my self-control to suppress a growing wave of anger inside me. I wanted so badly to tell her what an idiot she was. If the Carabinieri had known that Manuela was involved in drug dealing, however tangentially, they would have shifted their investigation in that direction. Maybe that wouldn’t have changed anything, but at least there might have been a chance to find out what happened to her.
“You didn’t say anything because you didn’t want to admit that you’d used cocaine. You didn’t want your parents to know, isn’t that right?”
She nodded. Now that I thought about it, I decided that stupidity had nothing to do with her behavior. Nicoletta was a small-minded, selfish coward, and the only reason she said nothing to the Carabinieri was to avoid any inconvenience to herself. That her close friend, roommate, companion in studies and everyday life, had vanished into thin air meant less to her than the mere risk that she might have to do some explaining to her parents about doing a line or two-was it a line or two?-of cocaine.
“I need to understand something, Nicoletta, and I’m going to ask you to tell me the truth, without holding anything back. I need to know if Manuela continued to get cocaine from the same people after she and Michele broke up. By ‘same people,’ I mean the people she met through Michele.”
“I swear that I don’t know how she got it. I asked once, and she told me to mind my own business.”
“What did she say?”
“She was kind of mean about it. She let me know it was none of my business and asking could be dangerous.”
“Is that what you understood her to mean, or is that what Manuela actually said to you?”
“I don’t remember her exact words, but that was certainly how she made it sound.”
A few minutes of complete silence followed. Caterina lit another cigarette. Nicoletta rubbed a hand over her face and sighed deeply. For a minute I thought she was about to burst into tears, but she didn’t. I was trying to think of anything else I might be able to get out of her. Nothing came to mind, so I asked if I could see Manuela’s bedroom.
“There’s nothing of hers left in the room,” Nicoletta said.
“Does another girl live in the room now?”
“No, the landlady hasn’t found another tenant yet, so I’m living here alone.”
“Then you won’t mind if I take a look.”
Nicoletta shrugged and stood up without a word. Manuela’s bedroom was halfway down the hall and, I noticed, the door was locked; Nicoletta turned the key in the lock before opening the door. As I walked into the room, I felt my pulse quicken, as if the information that would solve the case was hidden in that room, and I was about to find it.
But I wasn’t. It was just as Nicoletta had said. Nothing in the room was connected with Manuela. There was a single bed. There was a desk with empty drawers. There was an armoire, which was also empty. A series of small, bad watercolors hung on the walls. They appeared to have been part of the original furnishings of the bedroom and of the apartment.